A Joust of Knights (Book #16 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (18 page)

The small group of Empire soldiers
charged through the Great Waste, galloping at full speed on their zertas,
faster than any horse, and stirring up a massive cloud of dust in their wake.
At their head rode their commander, the cruel, merciless Empire veteran who had
taken great pleasure in torturing Boku before his last breath—and discovering
exactly where Gwendolyn and her crew had departed into the Great Waste.

Now the commander led the small group of
Empire trackers deeper and deeper into the Waste, following Gwendolyn’s
people’s trail as it led away from the Empire village, tracking it as they had
been for days, determined to discover where she went. The order had trickled down
from Volusia herself, and the commander knew that if he did not succeed, it
would mean his death. He would have to find her, no matter what, dead or alive.
If he could find bring her back to Volusia as a trophy, it would mean his
promotion, his rise to commander of one of her armies. For that, he would give
anything.

The commander raised his whip and lashed
his zerta again across the face, making it scream and not caring. He had driven
his men mercilessly, too, not allowing them to sleep, or even stop, for an
entire day. They tore through the desert, following the trail that the
commander was determined not to allow to go cold. After all, it might not just
be Gwen at the end of it; it could even be the famed Ridge, the one that had
eluded Empire commanders for centuries. If Gwendolyn’s trail lead to that—if it
even existed—then he would come back as the greatest hero in modern times.
Volusia might then even make him her Supreme Commander.

The commander watched the hard-baked
soil as they went, using his keen eyes to look for any variations, any
movements. He had already noticed where, miles back, many of Gwendolyn’s men
had dropped dead. A good tracker knew that a trail was not static, but a living
thing, always subject to change—and always telling a story, if one knew how to
look.

The commander slowed his zerta as he
noticed another change in the trail. It narrowed dramatically up ahead,
indicating fewer people, and immersed in the sand, he also saw the remnants of
corpses. Up ahead, he saw some bones scattered about, and he brought his zerta
to a stop.

His men all came to an abrupt stop
beside him.

The commander dismounted, walked over to
the bones, long-dried, and knelt beside them. He ran his hand along them, and
as he did, he drew on his expertise to look for the signs. The Empire—Volusia
herself—had chosen him for this very purpose. In addition to being an expert
torturer, he was known as the Empire army’s greatest tracker, able to find
anyone, anywhere—without fail.

As he fell silent, studying them, his
men came up and knelt beside him.

“They are dried,” his men said. “These
people died moons ago.”

The commander studied them, though, and
shook his head.

Finally, he replied: “No, not weeks ago.
You are deceived. The bones are clean, but not due to time. They have been
picked clean by insects. They are actually quite fresh.”

The commander picked one up, to
demonstrate, and tried to break it in his hand—it did not break.

“It is not as brittle as it seems,” he
replied.

“But what killed them?” one of his men
asked.

He studied the sand around the bones,
running his hand through it.

“There was a scuffle here,” he finally
said. “A fight between men.”

His men surveyed the desert floor.

“It looks like they were all killed,”
one observed.

But the commander was unconvinced: he
looked out into the desert, studied the floor, and saw a glimpse of the trail up
ahead, however faint it was.

He shook his head and stood to his full
height.

“No,” he replied decisively. “Some of
them survived. The group has splintered. They are weak now. They are hurt—and
they are mine.”

He jumped onto his zerta, lashed it
across the face, and broke off at a gallop, following the trail, eyes locked on
it, determined to hunt them down, wherever they were, and kill whoever had
survived this group.

*

The commander charged into the afternoon
sky, the two suns hanging low as great balls on the horizon, heading ever deeper
into the Great Waste. His zerta gasped and his soldiers heaved behind him, all
of them on the verge of collapse. The commander did not care. They could all
drop dead out here in the desert for all he cared. He wanted only one thing,
and he would not stop until he had it: to find Gwendolyn.

The commander fantasized as he rode; he
imagined himself finding Gwendolyn alive, torturing her for days on end, then
tying her to his zerta and riding back the entire way that way. It would be fun
to see how long it would take until it killed her. No, he realized—he could not
do that. He would lose his prize. Maybe he would just torture her a little bit.

Or maybe, just maybe, her trail would
lead him to the fabled Ridge, the holy grail of the Empire quests. If he found
it, he would sneak back and report it to the Empire, and lead an army out here
personally to return and destroy it. He smiled wide—he would be famous for
generations.

They charged and charged, every bone in
his body aching, his throat so dry he could barely breathe, and not caring. The
suns began to dip below the horizon and he knew that night would soon fall out
here. He wouldn’t slow for that either, but ride all night if he had to.
Nothing would stop him.

Finally, up ahead, the commander spotted
something in the distance, some break in the monotony of this flat landscape. They
bore down on it, and as they did, he recognized what it was: a tree. A huge, twisted
tree, by itself in the middle of nowhere.

He followed the trail until it ended,
right beneath the tree. Of course it would end here, he thought: they would
seek shade, shelter. He could use it himself.

He came to a stop beneath the tree and
his men all followed, all of them gasping as they dismounted, beyond exhausted.
He was, too, but he did not pay attention. Instead, he was too focused on the
trail. He looked down and studied it, baffled. The trail seemed to disappear
into thin air. It did not proceed in any direction once they reached it.

“They must have died beneath the tree,”
said one of his men.

The commander frowned, annoyed by their
stupidity.

“Then where are their bones?” he
demanded.

“They must have been eaten,” another
added. “Bones and all. Look there!”

There came a rustling noise, and the
commander followed his men’s worried glance as they pointed to the tree
branches, way up high, hiding scores of tree clingers. The beasts watched them
carefully, as if debating whether to pounce.

His men hurried out from beneath the
tree, but the Commander stayed put, unafraid. If they killed him, so be it—he
was not concerned. He was more concerned with losing the tracks, with reporting
back to Volusia as a failure.

“Let us go,” said one of his men, laying
a hand on his shoulder. “Night falls. I am sorry. Our search is over. We must
return now. They died here, and that is what we must tell Volusia.”

“And bring back no proof?” the commander
asked. “Are you as stupid as you look? Do you now know that she would kill us?”

The commander ignored his men and
instead stood there and looked out, peering into the desert, hands on hips. He
listened for a long time, to the sound of the blowing wind, of the rustling
branches, listening for all the signs, the faintest clues. He closed his eyes
and smelled the dusty air, using all of his senses.

When he opened his eyes, he looked down
and studied the ground, his nose telling him something—and this time, he
spotted a tiny dot of red.

He knelt beside it and tasted the dirt.

“Blood,” he reported. “Fresh blood.” He
looked up and studied the horizon, feeling a new certainty rise within him.
“Someone died here recently.”

He smiled as he stood and looked down
and began to realize.

“Ingenious,” he said.

“What, Commander?” one of his men asked.

“Someone tried to cover it up,” he said.
It was indeed ingenious, he realized, and he knew it would have fooled any
other tracker—but not him.

“Gwendolyn is alive,” he said. “She went
that way—and she’s not alone. There are new people with her. And I would bet
anything, anything in the world, that she will lead us right into the lap of
the Ridge.”

The commander mounted his zerta and took
off, not waiting for the others, following his instincts, which were leading
him, he knew, toward a new horizon—and toward his ultimate glory.

Kendrick woke to a cool breeze on his
face, his head on the hard desert floor, and knew immediately that something was
wrong.

He sat up quickly and looked all around him,
on alert. The warrior within had always told him when danger lurked, when
something had imperceptibly shifted in the air. He saw Brandt and Atme, Koldo
and Ludvig and all the others lying about the fire, now just embers, as the
first of the two suns began to rise, lighting the sky a scarlet red. Everything
was still, and at first glance everyone seemed to be here and all seemed to be
well. He squinted into the horizon and saw no threat, no monsters of any kind.

Yet still, some sense within him told
him something was not right. Kendrick wondered if it was just the nightmares he’d
had, plaguing him all night as he tossed on the hard desert floor, swatting
away bugs. Yet he knew better.

Kendrick slowly rose to his feet as the
sun rose higher, the sky lightening just a bit, and as he surveyed the camp
once again, suddenly he saw it: there, in the distance, were tracks, leading
away from his camp. Footprints.

Kendrick looked back and itemized all the
bodies lying about the fire and he suddenly realized, his heart skipping a
beat, that one was missing:

Kaden.

There came a quiet clanging of armor,
and Kendrick turned to see the men slowly, one by one, rising in the desert morning,
all looking at him, standing there in wonder. They saw Kendrick looking
cautiously out into the desert, and they lay their hands on the hilt of their
swords, on guard, too.

Koldo came up beside him.

“There,” Kendrick said.

Koldo followed his glance, down to the
desert floor, and as he saw the footprints, his eyes widened. He immediately
turned and scanned the camp.

“Kaden,” Koldo said, alarm in his voice.
“He is missing.”

All the others rose to their feet and
began to walk to the footprints, examining them, while Ludvig knelt down beside
them, ran his finger in them, and looked up to the horizon.

“Kaden was the last on patrol last
night,” said a young soldier, who stood there, looking panicked. “I gave him
the torch before I fell asleep. He was on dawn patrol. I remembered, he
ventured out there by himself.”

“Why?” Koldo demanded.

The soldier looked up, nervous, unsure.

“He said he wanted to go further. He
wanted to prove to the others that he was unafraid.”

Kendrick looked down at the footsteps,
and it all suddenly made sense. This fine young man, going out there alone, wanting
to prove himself after Naten made fun of him in front of the others. It made
Kendrick hate Naten even more.

They all set out, as one, wordlessly
following the trail, and after about twenty paces, Kendrick looked down and was
surprised to see the trail changed dramatically. In place of one set of footprints,
there were dozens of other prints. Unusually shaped creatures’ prints. They
trailed off into the horizon.

They all studied it with grave concern.

Ludvig knelt, examining the prints,
rubbing the sand between his fingers. He then looked up and watched the trail
lead off into the flat, merciless desert horizon, in the opposite direction of
the sand wall.

“Sand Walkers,” Ludvig announced grimly.
“They’ve taken him.”

A heavy silence fell over all of them as
the reality of the situation sank in: Kaden, the King’s youngest son, their
crown jewel, had been abducted. The silence was so heavy and the tension so
thick, Kendrick could cut it with a knife.

“Those tracks lead away from the Ridge,”
Naten stepped up and said, frowning accusingly at Kendrick, as if this were all
his fault. “If we go after him, we will all die out there.”

Koldo scowled at him.

“If you’re so concerned with your life, turn
back and head for the Ridge.”

Koldo held his scowl until Naten looked
away, shamed.

“In fact,” Koldo said, raising his voice,
“I want all of you to go back. What we don’t need are all of us, on foot, heading
out into the Waste. We need horses. And speed, to catch them. All of you go
back, carry back our dead, and return to me with horses.”

“And you?” Naten asked. “You will travel
alone, on foot, away from the Ridge, against a tribe of Sand Walkers? You will
die.”

Koldo stared back firmly.

“There is no shame in death,” he
replied. “Only in turning our backs on our brothers.”

Kendrick felt his heart swell, and at
that moment, he knew exactly what was the right thing to do.

“I shall go with you,” Kendrick said.

“And I,” said Brandt and Atme, and all
the members of the Silver.

“And I, my brother,” Ludvig said, laying
a hand on Koldo’s shoulder. “After all, he is my brother, too.”

Kendrick could see the look of gratitude
and mutual admiration in Koldo’s eyes.

“Far be it from me to turn away someone
else’s valor,” Koldo replied.

Kendrick, resigned, turned to his men.

“Brandt and Atme, you may join us,”
Kendrick said, “but the rest of you Silver, return with the men of the Ridge. If
we should die, some Silver must live, to pass on our history to future
generations. Return to us with horses.”

The other Silver grudgingly nodded and backed
down.

Kendrick watched as the men of the
Ridge, along with the remaining Silver, turned and began walking quickly away,
back in the direction of the Ridge. He turned and faced Koldo, Ludvig, Brandt,
and Atme. Now there were but five of them, alone, out here in the Waste, and
about to head even deeper into it.

They exchanged a look of honor, of
fearlessness, of resignation, of mutual respect. Nothing more need be said:
Kaden was out there somewhere, and all of them, each one of them, would risk
their lives to get him back.

The five of them, together, turned
fearlessly and marched out into the Waste, into the rising suns, one step at a
time, on their ultimate quest of honor.